Aranda couldn’t stand aside when he arrived for a routine inspection at one of the shelters and saw the facility was on fire. He remembered all of the caged cats in the building. He didn’t waste any time. He walked inside after opening the door.
He strolled across the smoke-filled room to the cats’ cages and started opening them one by one. Those who were able to flee did so. He carried out those who couldn’t walk on their own into the street.
The heat scorched his skin, the smoke made breathing difficult, and tears welled up in his eyes, but the inspector returned to save those who remained.
They treated the weary inspector for carbon monoxide poisoning and then transported him to the hospital. He got off rather lightly, and he could already return home in a couple of hours — but he took a significant risk.
The inspector is confident that it was worthwhile because there were casualties as a result of his efforts.
The local council awarded the man with a diploma and an award after ten days, thanking him for saving lives. In his own perspective, though, he did nothing extraordinary: after all, he couldn’t just stand about waiting for the firemen to arrive.
«Only God knows what happened to those cats,» he speculates. «I had to pretend to be someone else so I wouldn’t try to save them.»
